Self-contained heating, cooling, and ventilating system



Dec. 11, 1956 .1.

SQLF-CONTAINED HEATING, COOLING AND VENTILATING SYSTEM Filed Jan.26,1955

R BOYLE ETAL 2,773,676

2 Sheets-Sheet 1 R5. Jb/zzz]? Boyle, BY Jo/zn/ii B0346, Jrz,

2 Sheets-Sheet 2 J. R. BOYLE ETAL SELF-CONTAINED HEATING, COOLING ANDVENTILATING SYSTEM INVENTOR5 John/J2 50y BY Jolzizflfiqy finwn fw fDec.11, 1956 Filed Jan. 26, 1955 as, J;

@Mwwt W? United States SELF-CONTAINED HEATING, COOLING, AND VENTILATINGSYSTEM The present invention relates to an improved self-containedheating, cooling and ventilating system. Our improved system has beenparticularly devised for house trailers, but it may also be used inother dwellings, such as small type ranch homes and other homes wherespace is at a premium.

The general object of the invention is to provide an improvedself-contained heating, cooling and ventilating unit of very smallcompact dimensions, which embodies: (1) air heating apparatus,preferably of the oil burner type; (2) air cooling apparatus embodying acompressor, a condenser and an evaporator; and (3) air circulatingapparatus embodying a motor driven blower.

Another object of the invention is -to arrange certain of the componentparts of the system in a vertically superposed relation so as to obtaina finished unit of tall, nar-row form which will occupy a minimum amountof floor space in the house trailer or in the small home.

Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparentfrom the following detail description of one preferred embodimentthereof. In the accompanying drawings illustrating such embodiment:

Figure 1 is a vertical sectional view through the improved unit,corresponding to a section taken on the plane of the line 1-1 of Figure2;

Figure 2 is a sectional view at right angles to Figure 1, taken on theplane of the line 2-2 of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a vertical, sectional view taken on the more rearwardlydisposed plane 3-3 of Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a horizontal sectional view taken approximately on the planeof the line 4-4 of Figure 2;

Figure 5 is a horizontal sectional view taken approximately on the planeof the line 5-5 of Figure 2; and

Figure 6 is a horizontal sectional view taken approximately on the planeof the line 6-6 of Figure 2.

The air heating apparatus, the air cooling apparatus and the aircirculating apparatus are all assembled within a tall, narrow sheetmetal housing 10 of rectangular form comprising a front wall 11, rightand left side walls 12 and 13, and a back Wall 14. This sheet metalhousing 10 has a height extending from the floor 16 to the ceiling 17 ofthe house trailer or small home. As illustrative of the compact floorspace occupied by the unit, we have devised one embodiment having adimension of 20 inches from side wall to side wall 12 and 13, and havinga front to rear dimension of 22 inches from rear wall 14 to front wall11. The back wall 14 of the unit is usually abutted against the sidewall 23 of the house trailer, either midway or near the ends of thetrailer, although it might be abutted against an end wall of thetrailer, whichever is most convenient. Thecompartment space of thetrailer to be heated or cooled is fragmentarily indicated at 24.

The front wall 11 has an opening 26 which is normally closed by a hingeddoor 27, this opening and door extending vertically from the heaterunit, disposed approximately at waist height, up to the blowercompartment near the ceiling. This front opening 26 affords convenientaccess for lighting the heater and filling the oil tank. The top of thefront wall 11 has an air discharge outlet 28 through which the heated orcooled air is blown by the motor .driven blower into a ceiling duct 29"which conveys the air along the ceiling level of the house trailer tooutlet registers opening downwardly at spaced points into thecompartment space 24, or into the dilferent rooms of the trailer. Thebottom of the front wall 11 has a return air grille 31 through whichreturn air is drawn along the floor level of the trailer for reheatingor recooling. This return air grille 31 opens into a return air duct 32defined at the rear by a rear sheet metal wall 33 and defined at theends or sides by the sheet metal side walls 12, 13 of the housing 10(Figure 6), from which it will be seen that the return air duct 32extends the entire width of the unit housing. If the trailer is of thetype equipped with an under floor return air duct, such as indicated at35, this under floor duct is connected with the return air duct 32 ofthe unit by an opening 36. v

The rear wall 33 of the return air duct has mounted therein a fresh airdamper 38 operable to close a fresh air opening 39 in the rear wall 33;or positionable to close the upper end of the return air-duct 32; or totake any intermediate position for proportioning the amount of returnair and the amount of fresh air to be circulated up past the heatingapparatus or the cooling apparatus. This damper 38 is mounted on atransverse rod 41 carrying an operating handle 42 at the side of theunit through which the damper may be positioned. As will be laterdescribed, the compartment 44 defined to the rear of the wall 33 is afresh :air compartment in which is housed the electric motor andrefrigerant compressor, and which compartment also supplies fresh air tothe evaporative condenser of the cooling apparatus, receiving said freshair from a downwardly opening duct '96. The upper portion of the wall 33above the fresh air intake opening 39 is sloped rearwardly at 33' andthence joins with an upwardly extending partition wall 46 which extendsfrom side wall 12 to side wall 13 of the housing 10. This partition wall46 defines a vertical front air passageway 47 and a vertical rear airpassageway 48; the front air passageway 47 passing all of the air whichis acted upon by "either the air heating apparatus or the air coolingapparatus, and the rear air passageway 48 handling all of the air whichacts upon the evaporative condenser of the cooling apparatus. Thepartition wall 46 has its bottom edge starting at the top of the freshair compartment 44.

Referring now to the heating apparatus, this is preferably in the formof an oil heater, designated 54, being typically represented by 'aso-called International oil heater of approximately 27,000 B. t. u. Thecombustion chamber or fire pot of the oil heater is provided with afront access door 55 held closed by a latch 56, which can be readilyopened when thelfront door 27 in the front wall 11 of the unit isopened, and through which access is thereby afforded for lighting theheater. The combustion air for supporting combustion in the combustioncham ber of the heater is supplied through a duct 58 which opens fromthe fresh air compartment 44 and communicates upwardly into thecombustion chamber of the heater 54. The products of combustion aretaken from the top of the combustion chamber through a stack 61 whichjoins at its upper end to a rearwardly directed stack section 61',whichin turn joins'to an upper rear stacksection 61" located adjacent tothe rear wall 14 of the unit, this latter stack section discharging toatmosphere out through the roof 17 of the trailer. As shown in Figure2,the heater 54 is disposed closer to the left hand side wall 13 of theunit, and an oil supply tank 63 is mounted to one side of the heater 54,adjacent to the other side wall 12 of the unit. This oil tank 63 can befilled through the front access. opening 26 in the fronthousing wall 11.For heat insulating'th'e adjacent portions of the housing walls from theheat of the oil heater 54, a lining of heat insulating material 64"i's"secure'd to the inner side of the door 27 opposite the oil heater.Also, a sheet metal baflle 65 is interposed between the heater 54 andthe adjacent side wall 13 of the housing to prevent excessive heating ofthis side wall, and similar sheet metal bafiles 66 and 67 are interposedbetween the other side of the heater 54 and the adjacent oil tank 64 toprevent excessive heating of the oil tank. The back wall of the heater54 is heat insulated from the evaporative condenser air channel 48 by asheet metal baffle 68 and by a body of asbestos insulation or likeinsulating material 69 intervening between the partition wall 46 and thebaffle 68.

If the trailer or home is situated in a locality where gas is cheaperthan oil, then the heater 54 can be connected up for burning gas; or ifit is situated where electrical heating energy is relatively cheap theheater 54 might be of the electrically heated type; or it might bearranged for burning coal or wood.

The air after moving upwardly past the heater 54 is deflected from theupper end of the passageway 47 through a right angle bend to passthrough an evaporator 71 in a direction from front to rear, and thenceupwardly into a blower compartment 72. This right angle bend in the airflow is defined between the front wall 11 of the housing and the upperrearwardly positioned extension 4-6" of the partition wall 46. Aspreviously described, the condenser air channel 48 is defined at thefront by a sheet metal partition wall 46 extending from side wall toside wall of the main housing, and starting upwardly from the fresh aircompartment 44. This partition wall 46 slopes rearwardly at 46' andthence continues upwardly at 46" to form a condenser dis-charge duct 48which discharges out through the roof 17 of the trailer. The rearwardlydirected portion 61' of the combustion chamber stack enters the wall 46"so that the upper end portion 61" of the stack passes up out of the roofof the trailer through the condenser discharge duct 48'.

Referring again to the right angle bend in the air flow defined betweenthe upper portion of the passageway 47 and the blower compartment 72,this right angle bend is defined between a drip pan wall 81 extendingforwardly from the partition wall 46", and a superposed upper wall 82extending rearwardly from the front door 27. These two walls 81 and 82extend between the side walls 12, 13 and have their ends overlapping,and mounted between such overlapping ends is the evaporator 71. Thisevaporator is preferably of the finned coil type andextendssubstantially from side wall to side wall of the housing 10.

At the entrance end of the right angle bend leading to the evaporator 71is an air filter 83 comprising a filtering cell 84 composed ofBrillo-Bronze" filtering material, or any other suitable filteringscreen or filtering fabric which is supported on a frame 84. Thisfiltering unit 83 is removably supported against a ledge 81' on the drippan wall 81 and against a depending flange 82' extending downwardly fromthe front edge of the upper wall 82, whereby the filtering unit 83 canbe readily removed through the opening 26, for cleaning or replacing.When the evaporator 71 is operating, the bottom wall 81 functions as adrip pan for collecting all moisture which is dropped out of the airstream as it passes through the evaporator. The rear end of bottom wall81 slopes downwardly to discharge this collected moisture into thecondenser discharge duct 48'.

Mounted in the blower compartment 72 is a centrifugal blower 85 adaptedto be driven through a belt drive or direct connected electric motor 86.The inlet of the blower 85 draws air from the blower compartment 72, andthe discharge from the blower takes place through outlet opening 28opening into the ceiling duct 29.

It will be seen from the foregoing that all conditioned air, or allventilating air, which is to be circulated into the compartment 24 ofthe trailer, passes through the filter unit 83 and through theevaporator 71. When the heater 54 is operating for heating the air, atwhich time the blower is operating for circulating the heated air, orwhen the blower is operating merely for circulating venti- 4 I latingair at atmospheric temperature through the trailer, no refrigerant isbeing evaporated in the evaporator 71. When the evaporator 71 isoperating for cooling the air, the heater 54 is, of course, notoperating, but the blower is generally operating for circulating thecooled air.

Referring now to the air cooling apparatus, this comprises a motordriven compressor unit disposed in the fresh air chamber 44 in the baseportion of the unit, such motor driven compressor comprising anyconventional compressor 91 driven by an electric motor 92. A supportingbase frame 93 has mounting through rubber cushion blocks or springs 94on the bottom wall 95 of the fresh air chamber 44. An air intake 96 forfresh air or condenser air opensthrough the floor 16 of the trailer intothe compartment 44, this air intake 96 extending substantially the widthof the unit. Where additional compressor ,capacity is desired, twocompressor units 90 may be mounted side-by-side in the chamber 44, asindicated by the dotted line illustration of a second compressor unit inFigures 2 and 6.

From chamber 44 the condenser air flows upwardly through condenserchannel or passageway 48 to an evaporative condenser 100 disposed inthis channel. In its preferred embodiment, this evaporative condensercomprises a vertically mounted electric motor 101 having a downwardlyextending shaft 102 carrying an air impelling fan 103 near its upperend, and carrying a water projecting spinner 104 at its lower end. Thiswater projecting spinner 104 rotates within a pair of concentric helicalcondenser coils 105 and 106, which are wound on the inside and outsiderespectively of a circularly arranged group of sheet metal fins 107which lie in radial planes in the group, i. e. each fin is disposedsubstantially radially with respect to the concentric centers of the twohelical condenser coils 105 and 106, the fins serving as spacing membersfor maintaining the concentric spacing of the inner and outer coils. Thewater projecting spinner 104 has a vertically tapered pair ofdiametrically opposite wings 108 which are adapted to lift water from awater tank 111 and spray it against the coils 105, 106 and the spacingfins 107. The lower portions of the tapered wings are immersed in waterin the water tank 111, and these lower portions have cupped or crimpededges which are curled over on those sides of the vanes which are theback sides with respect to the direction of rotation of the spinner.Because of the outwardly tapered divergence of these curled edges on thetwo spinners, these lower portions of the vanes act to lift the watercentrifugally from the tank 111. The upper portions of the wings 108have toothed or corrugated edges which project the lifted Wateroutwardly against the condenser coils 105, 106 and spacing fins 107,with the water broken up into small water droplets or fine spray.

Mounted on the motor shaft 102 above the condenser coils and below theair impelling fan 103 is a combined hydraulic balancer and watereliminator 114, This device is of hollow conical form having an inwardlycupped lower edge which collects a hydraulically balancing ring of watertherein. The lower end of the shaft 102 has bearing support in thebottom of the water tank 111, and a flexible coupling 116 joins theupper end of the shaft to the motor 101.

Surrounding the evaporative condenser is a casing 121 which has itslower end extending into the water tank 111 and terminating at a leveljust above the normal water level in said tank. The upper portion of thecasing 121 passes through a horizontal cross wall122 which closes offthe evaporative condenser air channel 48, thereby compelling all airpassing upwardly through the channel 48 to pass through the evaporativecondenser casing 121 before being discharged through the condenserdischarge duct 48. The above described construction of the evaporativecondenser 100.constitutes the subject matter of a separate copendingapplication filed by ourselves and identified as Serial No. 484,952,filed January 31, 1955.

When the air cooling apparatus is to be set into operation, the electricmotor 92 driving the compressor 91 is energized, the electric motor 101of the evaporative condenser is likewise energized, as is also the motor86 driving the blower 85. The compressed refrigerant is evaporated inthe evaporator 71 for cooling the flow of air induced by blower 85,following which the gaseous refrigerant is passed through the compressorand thence through the evaporative condenser 100 for giving up heat tothe air stream passing therethrough. The condenser 100 has such a largearea of air cooled condensing surface that it can be operated dry with arelatively high degree of efficiency if the trailer is in a localitywhere water is scarce. Otherwise, a float control valve in the watertank 111 maintains a predetermined level of water in this tank from asuitable source of water supply.

The fresh air damper 38 can be placed in any adjusted position forproportioning the amount of return air to fresh air either when theheater 54 is operating for heating the air, or when the evaporator 71 isoperating for cooling the air, or when neither apparatus is operatingand the motor driven blower 85 is merely circulating air through thetrailer substantially at atmospheric temperature. In either of thesethree phases of operation, the air is continuously filtered by passingthrough the filter 83.

The three electric motors 86, 92 and 101 are preferably 110 volt motorsfor operation from the lighting and power circuits of trailer campsites, but with adequate storage battery capacity they could berelatively low voltage battery operated motors.

While we have illustrated and described what we regard to be thepreferred embodiment of our invention, nevertheless it will beunderstood that such is merely exemplary and that numerous modificationsand rearrangements may be made therein without departing from theessence of the invention.

We claim:

1. In a self-contained unit for heating or cooling the air of anenclosure, the combination of a relatively tall narrow housing, a returnair compartment in the lower portion of said housing receiving returnair from said enclosure, a front air passageway extending upwardly inthe front of said housing from said return air compartment, an oilheater in said front air passageway having a combustion chamber, anaccess opening in the front wall of said housing for affording access tosaid oil heater, a refrigerant evaporator in said front air passagewayat a point above said oil heater, air impelling means receiving air fromsaid front air passageway at a point above said refrigerant evaporatorand discharging it from said unit into the enclosure, a rear airpassageway in said housing in rear of said front air passageway, a freshair duct supplying fresh air to said rear air passageway, a motor drivenrefrigerant compressor in said rear air passageway, a condenser in saidrear air passageway receiving the refrigerant from said compressor forcondensing it prior to its passage to said evaporator, an exhaust ductexhausting said rear air passageway to atmosphere, a combustion airsupply duct drawing air from said rear air passageway at a point belowsaid condenser for supplying combustion air to the combustion chamber ofsaid oil heater, and a products of combustion duct leading from saidcombustion chamber to said rear air passageway at a point above saidcondenser, whereby the combustion air supply and the products ofcombustion are drawn from and returned to said rear air passageway in ashunt path around said condenser.

2. In a self-contained unit for heating or cooling the air of anenclosure, the combination of a relatively tall narrow housing, a returnair compartment in the lower portion of said housing receiving returnair from said enclosure, a front air passageway extending upwardly inthe front of said housing from said return air compartment, an oilheater in said front air passageway having a combustion chamber, anaccess opening in the front wall of said housing for afiording access tosaid oil heater, a refrigerant evaporator in said front air passagewayat a point above said oil heater, a blower compartment in the upperportion of said housing receiving air from the upper portion of saidfront air passageway after it has passed in contact with said oil heaterand said refrigerant evaporator, a motor driven blower in said blowercompartment for discharging such air from said unit into the enclosure,a rear air passageway in said housing in rear of said front airpassageway, a fresh air compartment supplying fresh air to said rear airpassageway, a motor driven refrigerant compressor in said rear airpassageway, an evaporative condenser in said rear air passagewayreceiving the refrigerant from said compressor for condensing its priorto its passage to said evaporator, an exhaust duct exhausting said rearair passageway to atmosphere, a combustion air supply duct drawing airfrom said rear air passageway at a point below said evaporativecondenser for supplying combustion air to the combustion chamber of saidoil heater, and a products of combustion duct leading from saidcombustion chamber to said exhaust duct at a point above saidevaporative condenser, whereby the combustion air supply and theproducts of combustion are drawn from said rear air passageway andreturned to said exhaust duct in a shunt path around said evaporativecondenser.

3. In a self-contained unit for heating or cooling the air of anenclosure, the combination of a relatively tall narrow housing, a returnair compartment in the lower portion of said housing receiving returnair from said enclosure, a front air passageway extending upwardly inthe front of said housing from said return air compartment, an oilheater in said front air passageway having a combustion chamber, anaccess opening in the front wall of said housing for affording access tosaid oil heater, a refrigerant evaporator in said front air passagewayat a point above said oil heater, a blower compartment in the upperportion of said housing receiving air from the upper portion of saidfront air passageway after it has passed in contact with said oil heaterand said refrigerant evaporator, a motor driven blower in said blowercompartment for discharging such air from said unit into the enclosure,a rear air passageway in said housing in rear of said front airpassageway, a fresh air compartment supplying fresh air to said rear airpassageway, a motor driven refrigerant compressor in said rear airpassageway, an evaporative condenser in said rear air passagewayreceiving the refrigerant from said compressor for condensing it priorto its passage to said evaporator, an exhaust duct exhausting said rearair passageway to atmosphere, damper means between said front and rearair passageways for permitting a controlled inflow of fresh air intosaid front air passageway, a combustion air supply duct drawing air fromsaid fresh air compartment at a point below said evaporative condenserfor supplying combustion air to the combustion chamber of said oilheater, and a products of combustion duct leading from the upper portionof said combustion chamber to said exhaust duct at a point above saidevaporative condenser, whereby the combustion air supply is drawn fromsaid fresh air compartment and the products of combustion are returnedto said exhaust duct in a shunt path around said evaporative condenser.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS2,001,309 Kelly May 14, 1935 2,150,076 Neubauer et al. Mar. 7, 19392,304,359 Hornmel Dec. 8, 1942 2,319,062 Holmes May 11, 1943 2,362,729Smith Nov. 14, 1944 2,399,950 Steins May 7, 1946 2,509,031 Bockmeyer May23, 1950 2,694,553 Hicks et al. Nov. 16, 19.53

